This photo shows a green, silicone chip and dip tray with divided compartments, and there's an opening in the middle to hold a bottled beverage. In this photo, the bottled beverage is a cherry soda, and the dip containers hold colorful pepper strips, flour tortilla wedges (baked), a plain yogurt vegetable dip, pretzel twists, and salsa.

Sip, Snack, Repeat

This photo shows a green, silicone chip and dip tray with divided compartments, and there's an opening in the middle to hold a bottled beverage. In this photo, the bottled beverage is a cherry soda, and the dip containers hold colorful pepper strips, flour tortilla wedges (baked), a plain yogurt vegetable dip, pretzel twists, and salsa.

If you need beer-snacking accessories, steady yourself and maybe grip the wall for support: they’re in the bookstore. I’m not kidding. That’s where I found this “beer accessory” snack container that makes a sunhat look completely unnecessary and ridiculous. Why wear a hat when your snack dish can just be one for your beer? Or maybe it’s a fun party skirt? Who cares? All I know is, I can’t get enough of this thing.

The beverage you see in the feature image for this blog is not really a beer, though. It’s a favorite cherry soda I like to drink, so the skirt/hat/container contraption is for all kinds of beverages, not just the boozy ones.

The divided containers in the tray serve as mini kiddie pools for your snacks. Add mini beach balls, and your snacks are ready for a wild time.

Also, if you have any snacks you bought that you thought you would love, but you don’t, this snack tray makes them taste better. Here’s an example:

I bought some dill pickle flavored pretzel twists, and my first bite was amazeballs. Then, it all went downhill from there. There’s a lot of puckering pickle flavor in a full serving of pretzel twists. Too much pickle!

But: if you make a semi-terrible dip, like I just did a few minutes ago, the snack you once hated (for me, it was the pickle pretzels), tastes incredible!

All you have to do is this: take 1 ½ cups of plain yogurt + ¼ cup of chopped radishes + ¼ cup of sliced green onion + 2 tablespoons of Italian parsley + ½ teaspoon of salt + 1 teaspoon of garlic powder + ¼ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. Mix everything together—and you have something that doesn’t quite taste bad, but it’s not good, either. The solution is to put the dip you made into one of the mini kiddie pools of the beer-snacking tray and shout, “Cannonball!” The pickle-flavored pretzels dive right in, and they kind of save the day.

For additional snacking festivities, I added the following to the remaining mini kiddie pool sections: some fresh vegetables, flour tortilla chips that I toasted in the oven, and a quick salsa I threw together with multi-colored tiny tomatoes.

The whole tray is made out of a silicone-like material, so it feels weird to touch it, but what doesn’t these days?

In any case, I can’t wait to go back to the bookstore—if only to buy more books to serve as diving boards for cocktail onions and martini olives. Which, if I remember correctly, are between the juicy memoirs and the spicy paperbacks, but also sandwiched near the home-baked horror section.

Your Turn: What are some unusual things you’ve found in unexpected places while shopping?

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Published by ckennedy

Author of the DIY blog: Fixin' Leaks and Leeks. Paper/Rock Writing Consultation, Sole Proprietor.

29 thoughts on “Sip, Snack, Repeat”

  6. you are so funny!! And those silicone holders are so cool – also, cheers to the soda – we recently had cream soda for a change – and while a little too sweet – it was a nice flashback

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  7. I’ve noticed an odd selection of scented candles lately that are supposed to smell like NYC subway and pizza and things that I just don’t need to have smell of in my house. I wish I paid more attention last week when I saw some in a store

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  9. We have a lovely truly local shop, Southbourne Stores, which is more than just a hardware store – you can buy anything from bamboo toothbrushes to colouring books. You can either squeeze down the narrow spaces awaiting a surprise, or you can go in and ask if you need something, so much is crammed in you will never find it yourself.

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  11. Not sure if it goes with your question, but the only thing I can think of right now is walking into a McDonald’s in Hawaii and seeing Spam on the breakfast menu. Don’t get me wrong, I ate Spam a lot growing up in Puerto Rico, but I never saw it on the menu there.

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